Letter 10036: The embassy I undertook on behalf of the Senate was not a success in the sense of achieving its stated objective,...

Day and night I am anxious to advance the commands of your divine clemency with ready compliance, since indeed decrees friendly to justice and to the laws may not be put off by long deferral, O lords emperors [the three Augusti]. Hence there is need of caution, lest a slowness brought about by others in conveying your instructions should mar my reputation. For although your perpetuity [your everlasting majesty] some time ago delegated to me the judgment concerning Macedonius, who had acted against the public interest, and likewise concerning Ammianus, I have learned, by the attestation of the imperial guardsmen, that Ammianus, when he had come into the neighborhood of the city, was carried off by sickness; but concerning Macedonius various reports are bandied about, the man whom the diligence of his keepers ought long since to have brought in. I therefore beg your mildness that the delay incurred through another's zeal or sluggishness may not be charged to my fault, and at the same time I entreat that your venerable eternity distinguish, point by point, what must be inquired into, if perchance the care of those in charge of him has handed over the appointed defendant to my cognizance.